Challenges of a Reduced Budget
Beat Intro
Voiceover
00.08 This is the Beat - a podcast series that keeps you in the know about the latest
community policing topics facing our nation.
Circle of Respect Interview
Katherine McQuay
00.15 Joining me today is Gordon Graham, President of Lexipol. Thank you for joining
us Gordon.
Gordon Graham
00.20 Thank you, Katherine, for the invite.
Katherine
00.22 We have heard so much lately about reduced budgets and the challenges that
represents for local law enforcement, but I know there are also opportunities.
Can you talk a bit about the challenges and the opportunities law enforcement
agencies are facing?
Gordon
00.38 You know I'm 60 and my mother used to say 'in every dark cloud there's a silver
lining'. And you know there are terrible things going on nationally with respect
to budgets, but that statement 'there's a silver lining here', maybe it will cause us
to revisit the way we do business and to get away from status quo, to get away
from 'we've always done it this way' - - huge opportunities.
I believe there's a lot of opportunities with our communities to re-invigorate their
role in law enforcement and better protecting their communities. There is a lot of
opportunities for us, as organizations, to take a look at what we are doing . Why
we're doing what we're doing, how we're doing it and improve our performance
in so many areas. How do we get sued? How do we get hurt? How do we get
killed? How do we get investigated? How do we end up getting in trouble? And
what control measures can we put in place upfront to prevent it? And for years a
lot of people said it wasn't necessary and all of a sudden, with all of the pressures
coming, with respect to the budgets, people are starting to reevaluate this, so
there are a lot of opportunities out there.
Katherine
01.38 And talk about how risk management can help in terms of not damaging your
budget.
Gordon
01.45 Well, first of all, I'm biased. So anything I tell you about risk management
comes from the eyes of a risk manager. I'm telling you that risk management is
the answer for everything. You identify and evaluate risks and you put together
control measures upfront to prevent problems from occurring. You've heard it -
you can pay me now or you can pay me later. Nickels upfront, on a background
investigation, can save you thousands of dollars downstream. Nickels upfront on
vehicle training can save you thousands of dollars downstream. Nickels upfront
in relations with the community can save you so much grief downstream.
Risk management is the process of looking into the future, identifying and
evaluating risks and developing, selecting, implementing control measures that
change outcomes. Everything we do involves risk. Let's start thinking like risk
managers.
Katherine
02.31 You mentioned the community. How can community policing play in with
reduced budgets and risk management? How can they work together?
Gordon
02.39 Well you know this is my simplistic look at life: When we all came over on the
boat, there were no cops on the boat. And we got here and we had a community
of people. And something bad happened and somebody said, 'we need a cop' -
and the cop was truly part of the community. And back then, it was probably the
biggest guy in the group - okay, we're going to make you the enforcer. When
somebody doesn't do something right, you're going to take action. And then we
needed more cops and more cops and the thing got bigger and bigger and bigger.
I don't know what happened. Someplace between 1770 and today - you know
the community and the police have gotten separated. And if we're going to be
successful, the police need to be part of the community and the community needs
to be part of the police. There are so many things we can do. If we're going to
be running short-handed on cops and we don't have enough people out there,
then what's wrong with bringing in community members? You know, our retired
personnel, the young people who care, people of a particular ethnic group or
minority group that care about their community - let's harness all that power.
Multiple hands make light work. We can do something about this. 'Well we've
never tried it before' - don't even get me started on this 'we've never tried it
before'. Community-based policing and what you're doing here in the COPS
program - this is the answer to so many of our problems in law enforcement.
And I really am appreciative of everything Director Melekian is doing and your
team is doing to make this work - it's the answer!
Katherine
03.59 Can law enforcement do this without the whole embrace of community
government, without working with other agencies?
Gordon
04.06 Well, 'do' is an interesting word. At what level of success? I imagine we can
"do something", but if we're going to maximize our effectiveness, we've got to
partner with the other agencies in government and we've got to partner with our
community. It's as simple as that. This is not advanced rocket science, you
know. We need to all get together and take a look at where we want to be and
what strategies, what tactics we need to put into place to make sure we're going
to get there successfully.
Katherine
04.32 You're with law enforcement agencies constantly.
Gordon Yes.
Katherine What's their main concern these days that they're coming to you with? They're
saying 'Gordon, help me because....'
Gordon
04.41 Money. Money, money, money. That's the most common phone call I get - is a
money issue. And it raises its ugly head in so many different ways. It's a budget
issue, it's a lawsuit issue. It's a termination issue. It's a layoff issue - that type
of thing. It's all money these days. And so how are we responding to this?
Well I hear this: We're going to do more with less. Whenever I hear a chief of
police or a sheriff say we're going to do more with less, what does that really
mean? Have we been ripping off the public for a number of years, that we're so
fat that we can do the same thing with less resources? More with less? I think
the phrase we need to get into is 'less with less'. We need to ask our community,
'what's important to you?' We're going to have to cut back on some of these
areas. We're running out of money. We're going to have to cut back. We're
asking you where are we going to cut back. And a lot of times, what we think is
the stuff that's so important to the community, is in fact not all that important.
And there's classic examples. If you work a night shift and you've got a loud
party on one side of you during the day and a heroin dealer on the other side of
you during the day, in your little world - as someone who needs a full day's
sleep so they can go to work on nightshift - which is more important to you?
The loud party is more important than the heroin dealer. But you walk up to your
average cop and you say which is more important - clearly, it's the heroin dealer.
Well, in whose eyes? Yours or the community's eyes? You know, I really
wonder what our community thinks about prostitution enforcement. And about
traffic enforcement and about so many things. And I'm not taking sides on this
- but how do you know what's really important to your community? If we're
truly going to partner with them, we need to get their input. What's important to
you? Here's the things we can do - now which one of these don't you want us
to do anymore because we have to reduce things? That's their decision. And if I
was a chief of police or a sheriff, I would be looking very clearly at them and
asking their opinion.
Katherine
06.28 Gordon, thank you so much for joining us and for all you do for the profession.
Gordon
06.31 Gosh, it's an honor to be here and thank you for all you're doing here with the
COPS Office. Thank you.
Beat Exit
Voiceover: The Beat was brought to you by the United States Department of Justice COPS
Office. The COPS Office helps to keep our nation's communities safe by giving
grants to law enforcement agencies, developing community policing publications,
developing partnerships and solving problems.
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Cops Office Transcript February 2011
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